Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook is about to get a whole lot creepier. A small group of users are beta-testing a new “subscribe” button located under users’ profile pictures that could make Facebook stalking as simple as a single click.

The button is a lot like “following” someone on Twitter and here’s how it works: If you click the “subscribe” button, all of that user’s activities, from new pictures to status updates to videos and links, will show up in your notifications. Few details have been released so far, but we’re interested in knowing if the service will show you who’s stalking your profile or if you can subscribe to non-friends, which would take the creep factor up to a solid 10.

Moving on to another creepy story, a school zone in West Vancouver is testing a rather extreme measure to force drivers to slow down in their vehicles.

Angry Birds is now available on Android!

(Credit:

Pocket Gamer UK)

The experiment places a 3D hologram of a young girl chasing a ball in the middle of the street that drivers will see about 100 feet away, giving them plenty of time to slow down…or have a heart attack and veer off the road. We can see the utility in a 3D cop on the side of the road or a flashing light to alert drivers entering school zones, but this is a little nuts.

To Jeff’s delight and Wilson’s girlfriend’s dislike, Angry Birds is now available on the Android operating system. Granted, it’s a “Lite” version in beta and many users (including Jeff) are experiencing random restarts and freezes, but it should tie over your addiction until the official version finally drops. For all the iPhone players out there, don’t forget that the Angry Birds Expansion Pack is also available.

Finally, we have a handful of voicemail messages that we haven’t gotten to play all week, and today’s batch inquires about the infamous “Cheese Stands Alone” episode, voicemail phone numbers, and a rare appearance from everyone’s favorite Verbose Asian Guy! Set it on repeat, guys–it ain’t happening again! 🙂

Episode 659

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Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

While winding down from Wednesday’s iPod announcements, Apple CEO Steve Jobs appears to have taken some time to respond to an e-mail criticizing the new look of the iTunes icon.

Joshua Kopac, who oversees design work for advertising firm ValuLeads, sent Jobs an e-mail blasting the new iTunes icon (right) — a blue bubble containing a music note, replacing the old icon of a music note floating above a compact disc.

Jobs said on Wednesday that iTunes was ditching its old icon (pictured above) because iTunes digital music was poised to outpace sales of physical CD albums by next year.

Kopac provided the e-mail exchange to Wired.com:

Steve,

Enjoyed the presentation today. But … this new iTunes logo really sucks. You’re taking 10+ years of instant product recognition and replacing it with an unknown. Let’s both cross our fingers on this….

Jobs’ reply, terse as usual, was such:

We disagree.

Sent from my iPhone

Jobs this past year has been exceptionally chatty with customers, many of whom have reported receiving e-mail responses from the famous CEO. Wired.com reviewed Kopac’s e-mail for its authenticity, and we believe it’s real.

“It’s hideous, don’t you think?” Kopac said of the new iTunes icon in a phone interview with Wired.com. “Essentially it’s just a music note. The CD previously showed what they were about — how they were connected to music.”

Kopac isn’t alone, as the new iTunes icon has already inspired a Twitter account dubbed @itunes10icon — a fake persona defending itself against critics who call it ugly.

“Everyone’s so quick to judge me,” iTunes10Icon tweeted early Friday. “I don’t judge you and that shitty, hipster music you listen to.”

See Also:

• Live Blog: Apple’s iPod, Music Event
• Apple’s ‘Ping’ Social Network Is Already Too Big to Fail …
• Steve Jobs Reinvents the CEO With E-Mail Campaign
• In E-Mail, Steve Jobs Comments on iPhone 4 Minerals

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The electric AMO1 table fan trying to impersonate a lollipop has been cloned by Abiko.

Last weekend Jeremy Hart — Wired.com contributor and a global traveller with 120 countries under his belt — left Los Angeles for a 60 day, 21 country, 15,000 mile drive around the world — in a Ford Fiesta.

Jeremy will be filing occasional updates here and on our sister blog Autopia. Here, he’ll be reporting on how well his various gadgets work in some of earth’s most amazing locations.

–

If you were the fisherman hanging over the edge of Santa Monica pier, the hobo foraging through a garbage bin or the glamour model squeezing into a dress (as shiny and pink as one of our two Ford Fiestas)  for a dawn photo shoot last weekend, then you would have witnessed this international escapade leaving the eastern edge of the Pacific. For us, it was the start of the Fiesta World Tour 2010.

In gadget terms the Fiesta is an iPod more than iPad. It’s funky, basic and functional. And it comes in a range of bright colours. It has built-in iPod connectivity, USB and aux jacks, and Sirius radio. All in all, it’s a good platform to bolt, strap, and load more gadgets onto — and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing.

Here’s a look at a few of the gizmos we’re taking on the start of the trip. (We’ve got plans to test more — many more — so this is just a beginning.)

Pocket video camera. I have a TV cameraman (using Sony’s EX1 HD broadcast camera) and a photographer (Canon 5D) with me, so the need for extra filmmaking and photography kit is not crucial. But I now refuse to go anywhere without a Flip Ultra HD. Broadcast-quality and idiot-proof, it fits both my criteria. I have two of them on the trip – just in case.

I will be video blogging with them for easy editing and instant uploading. Take a peek at the one I did at a gun club in Scottsdale, Arizona.

We use Motorola walkie-talkies for car-to-car communications on the road.

Apple iPad. Against my better judgement, I have decided to get an iPad for the trip. It’s the Wi-Fi-only, 64 GB version. Roaming with 3G is so expensive, so I opted against that model. And I say that against my better judgement because I have, and am currently writing on, my MacBook Pro. I’ll be interested to see how the iPad fits into our trip — and maybe even improves it — or if I wind up shipping it back to London for my kids to enjoy.

GPS tracker. I have a Spot Tracker so you can follow our travels. It allows you to see exactly where we are (and please, come and see us if you are pretty, have freshly baked goods, or want to give us gadgets you’d like us to take round the world).

I’ll have it set up for the next entry here, and I’ll give you the link to follow us then.

The Virgin MiFi (in the foreground) is the key to making a trip like this work. Wi-Fi for all my friends!

Portable hotspot. But my favourite piece of kit, as I write this from the middle of Arizona, is Virgin Mobile’s MiFi. Just 100 bucks for the unit and around 60 bucks for 6GB of upload/download data. It is the godsend of the trip so far.

It works off Sprint’s network, turning the cell network into a mobile hub through which 5 users can surf. A colleague in our second Fiesta surfed from the adjoining lane on I-40 at one point. I was on the edge of the Grand Canyon yesterday, uploading video and copy faster than I had in my hotel room the night before.

Talking of hotel rooms, we stayed at the fantastic Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale. But, as with many 5 star places, the internet service is 5 star prices. Not with my little Virgin buddy it wasn’t.

And being an Englishman in your wonderful country, it means I can use my iPhone 4 as it should be used, without  having to pay huge roaming charges ($3,000 a month last year when traveling in Canada, US and Australia).

Virgin might be a British company, but I am not going to apologize for my nationalize when I pledge my undying love to Sir Richard Branson and his MiFi. I’m motivated purely by the bandwidth, I assure you. I just fear it won’t be there when I need it in the remote Arabian desert next month or the Malaysian jungle a few weeks later.

Right — I gotta go now. I’ll have more gadgets to report on next week.

MeeGo’s official user interface guidelines could easily end up determining whether the platform sinks or swims — no one wants a phone whose UI looks like junk, after all. The minions at Nokia and Intel’s little pet project have posted new OS shots as examples of how to properly implement the interface in third-party apps, and we’ve got to admit — things are looking a lot cleaner, prettier, and generally more modern than the first round of pictures we saw back in June, thanks in part to a demonstration of the platform’s comprehensive theming capability that can totally revamp how UI elements look. We’re definitely seeing shades of webOS in the task switcher (pictured above), but then again, Nokia’s no stranger to borrowing ideas it likes. That’s all well and good as long as it makes for a great platform… and obviously, we’d need some hardware to do that. O N9, where art thou?

New official MeeGo screenshots show promise, influence originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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